Bills Beat Blog

By Joe Buscaglia

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Bills Beat Blog: July 26, 2011

by Joe Buscaglia,posted Jul 26 2011 1:35PM

It's a little later than usual, but you'll have to excuse me. The doors re-opening at One Bills Drive took precedence on the blog this morning. But it's worth the wait, because there's plenty of great notes from today:

At the Bills' "Back to Football" press conference as they're calling it, CEO Russ Brandon, GM Buddy Nix and HC Chan Gailey spoke with the media for almost half an hour about the NFL Lockout finally ending. During that, Nix said his philosophy does not change even though he has to spend a certain amount on his team.

"Our philosophy hasn’t changed. The amount of money hasn’t changed the way we think you’ve got to do it. We’ve said from Day One we’re never going to be huge spenders in free agency. There’s guys that come available, there will be waivers starting Thursday, guys cutting people; we always look to upgrade. We’re in the business of production. If we’ve got a guy that’s not producing, then if we can get somebody better we’ll do it. But if our guys that are producing for us, we’re going to spend the money on them. Our philosophy is still to draft ‘em and develop ‘em and win with ‘em."

- I don't know about you, but that doesn't exactly breed optimism if you were hoping for a spending spree this off-season. Now, I very well could be wrong, but the way that he was talking didn't give the indication that the Bills would be going hard after marquee free agents. Just my guess. For a recap of the press conference, click here.

The Bills PR staff gave media the opportunity to see an updated look at the field inside Ralph Wilson Stadium. While in there, I was able to snap a couple of photos:

One of the targets this off-season for GM Buddy Nix is to try and re-sign CB Drayton Florence. Just an hour before he was allowed to speak with teams all around the league, Florence joined The Howard Simon Show to talk a little football. You can hear the audio below:

If you were on Twitter last night, you missed the undrafted free agent frenzy from some bloggers out there. Agreements coming in minute to minute, along with changes to some of those agreements set the tone for the evening. NEPatriotsDraft.com has an unofficial list of each team's UDFA signings.
- Get ready: Zack Pianalto (TE, UNC), Sidney Glover (S, West Virginia), Domonic Cook (S, Buffalo), Brian Duncan (LB, Texas Tech), Reid Forrest (P, Washington State), Luther Davis (DE, Alabama), Emmanuel Moody (RB, Florida), Vai Taua (RB, Nevada), Daniel Aiken (LS, UVA)

WGRZ reports lightning struck the house of former Bills OT Jason Peters and sparked a fire late on Monday evening. Officials told Channel 2 that no one was in the house during the strike.
- As ugly as an ending it was between the Bills and Peters, I'm very glad no one was harmed during this freak occurrence.